The Avengers (2012)

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Rating: 4!
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This movie is definitely one for the record books. In more ways than one. The Avengers has an amazing cast that is not limited to Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgård, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Awesome movie reasons
#1 -- The build up. Marvel did this perfect. It wasn't just a random mash-up of characters that you don't know and have never heard of. The set up with the other five movies was wonderful. It also helped generate the hype for this movie that has made it the 3rd highest grossing movie of all time (without inflation and from wikipedia's numbers which I really don't see any reason why they would be wrong).

#2 -- The cast. All of the people in this movie are wonderful. Each actor/actress has perfectly kept their character from their respective movies and were allowed to build on them when they interact with the others. Stark and Banner make a fun duo as well as the Thor/Hulk interactions which have always been as hectic as possible. Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson is the perfect balance to all of the superheroes and gets to show his geeky side, too. A surprise visit from Cobie Smulders was interesting. I could only see her as Robin from How I Met Your Mother but she grows on you. And Nick Fury is just awesome. And Hiddleston is a wicked awesome Loki. He gives the perfect creepy-guy feeling and I couldn't see anyone else pull him off. Again.

#3 -- Joss Whedon = a god among directors and writers. No other way to put that. He let everyone be themselves with their character and gave for a fun story. A very fun and great story. I was really impressed for how they are setting this up. This is the director of Dr. Horrible and creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He is awesome. Bow down to him.

#4 -- The rest of the crew. The producers, writers, effects (are amazing), props, and everything. This movie echoes the production of Lord of the Rings to me. Everyone cared about making this movie amazing. And that happens with most movies, but the time and involvement involved to have five movies made as a set up for this one is incredible.

#5 -- The fact that this isn't just a superhero movie. It's an epic superhero movie. The chemistry for everything was just amazing. Characters that balanced with their lines. Awesome effects. And the fact that the story of the Avengers is just shy of 50 years old. Everything that was done to make this movie good happened. No one messed it up, whether it be companies, or people, or actors.

I've already seen this movie three times with plans to see it for a fourth and I don't think that this is wasted money at all. The only thing I don't like about this movie is that it will eventually have to leave theaters.

If superheroes aren't your thing, then at least this is a good story. In my personal opinion, anyone that doesn't like this movie has lost their childhood. If you argue with that then anyone that doesn't like this movie just doesn't want good to defeat evil.

I will stand by my love for comics and I'll recognize when something isn't a good portrayal of them. And this is quite possibly the greatest superhero movie that could ever be created.

But I guess that we'll just have to wait for July 20th...